When people talk about rusted magnets...

[Bobblehead]

I would say that rusted magnet is no problem and may even be a good thing. I throw iron in my tank all the time and probably have 1 dozen nails and screws in there for decades. Iron is a necessary metal.
There is almost no aluminum in a magnet and even if there was, it wouldn't do anything in that trace amount.

Noooo don’t say that, you’re dashing my hopes that I found the smoking gun lol

 

[Paul B]

Sorry. Maybe it's what you watch on TV. You don't let the fish hear Rap music do you?

 

[H@rry]

Isn't GFO just iron rust? We use that all the time.

 

[Cory]

Isn't GFO just iron rust? We use that all the time.

Yes but its much more pure. Its not the iron its the impurities mostly that hurt corals.

 

[TheDuude]

What are you using to test po4 ? Do u trust it? Recently had a similar issue but it ended up being a bad test kit.

 

[ApoIsland]

Would this be considered "bad"? I've been going through a decline in my coral health the past couple of months and am trying to eliminate possible culprits. Today I decided to check my pumps and this is what I found. I'm pretty sure this has to be a large part of the issue I've been having but was just wondering what others may think as far as how much rust would cause how much of a problem.

I'm fairly certain that amount of rust is not going to hurt your coral unless you have a tank the size of a shot glass. Even then I doubt it would kill anything. During a tank move I once discovered a pair of pliers that had gone missing at least a year or two earlier.

 

[Afterburner]

ICP test!

I lost a lot of corals about a year ago due to a rusted magnet. It turned out that my Tin was off the charts high (102.3ug/l). I first lost my birds nests, then some acros, then my torch, candy canes, hammers. As my torch died, it spawned due to the stress and now I have 6 baby torches that are now growing nicely. The weird part is that my gonies, green slimers, stunners and monti's didn't seem to care, but quit growing. I noticed my ALK rising so I had to reduce my two part due to the reduced growth which made me get an ICP test. I wish I had the ICP earlier and saved some really nice colonies.

I need to get some birds nests again to have sort of like the canary in a coal mine. They went really quickly.

 

[h2so4hurts]

With PaulB on this one. Probably not your rusty impeller. ICP if you want but even that's a bit like reading tea leaves. You changed something kind of major on your tank and saw STN, it's probably that.

 

[KHogan]

My tank was running great until it started declining over the course of a couple weeks. Weird thing was it was only half my tank. Monti’s and acros stn’d. Couldn’t figure it it out until I took apart the gyre on that side. Magnet was split. Could’ve been that slowed down flow or the magnet poisoned the water. Took it out, ran some poly filters and trending good again.

 

[OrangeCountyReefer]

I have 4 frag magnets that are competely rusted in my tank and have been for probably 5 months and my entire tank is fine. I have dozens of coral varying LPS and some SPS and all have great polyp extension all the time. I would not say the iron would be the issue. Maybe some of other metal in the rusting part or some other issue all together.

 

[Cory]

When a metal becomes attatched to organics, it becomes less toxic or not at all. Copper is one such example. Levels of organics and food inputs vary between tank to tank and thus their organic content and ability to chelate metals and make them less toxic is variable between each aquarium.

Also a magnet that bursts open qnd has a large surface area and one that cracks open very little are different beasts. One dumps tons of metals at once, the other is a slow increase. Which is more damaging?

Lets not pretend corals are immune to heavy metals. There are hundreds of examples of tanks with coral deaths dur to rusting magnets and their associated metals.

Lasty remember each manufacturer uses different magnets with varying impurities. Just because one manufacturer didn't kill your corals, doesnt mean the next wont skyrocket your tin levels.

 

[Bobblehead]

Wow, I didn’t think this would get such polarized opinions. After reading all of these comments and experiences, it’s now clear as mud. I am starting to lean towards it not being a major factor in my tanks problems though.

Nevertheless, I appreciate everyone’s input, thank you!

 

[DonTavo27]

I had a rusted magnet, from the impeller of one of my return pumps, basically wipe out most Of the coral in a 240 gallon DT, a few years back. I couldn’t figure it out, until I took the setup down. I know this to be true, because earlier that year, I accidentally dropped a screw in my sump, which rusted and started killing off coral.
I would say replace the impeller, perform a large water change, and throw some chemipure in the sump.

 

[beach chair]

I have an acro colony that grew over a frag rack with the magnets busted open. It’s been that way for nine years now and has grown into the glass and almost out of the water. I’m skeptical it’s the magnets.

 

[Bobblehead]

I would say replace the impeller, perform a large water change, and throw some chemipure in the sump.

All of these have been done, now I wait and see.

 

[cdare99]

I had a similar problem about a year ago, coral health slowly become worse until most of my corals and frags died off. They were mostly lps and softies not much sps in the tank at the time. Had a hard time pinpointing the problem because I was having light problems around the same time. Eventually I did the triton icp test. Al came back 2.7 ug/l and set point is 0-60 ug/l so I was still in the green zone for that one and iron came back negative. I say that because I figured it was a pump or door hinge that cause the problem but most likely wasn’t. What was my problem was Tin it was 4.4 ug/l should be 0 bad but not horrible according to the chart. The bad one was silicon is was 4200 ug/l the ok range was 0-200. I still don’t really know what caused the silicon problem or if it was my problem. I replaced all my ro/di stuff, salt and even stopped using my big food grade water container because I was paranoid maybe it was leaching it. I started running some stuff to remove the two elements that shouldn’t have been there and eventually the tank came back around. Tbh I would try and icp see if anything comes back. I liked the triton test lots of stuff it test and gives you a range it should be in and how to fix it. I bought an ati(because the rodi test)but still haven’t used it because the tanks doing good, that and I wasn’t sure if covid shut them down at the time I kind of still needed it.

 

[KHogan]

My tank was running great until it started declining over the course of a couple weeks. Weird thing was it was only half my tank. Monti’s and acros stn’d. Couldn’t figure it it out until I took apart the gyre on that side. Magnet was split. Could’ve been that slowed down flow or the magnet poisoned the water. Took it out, ran some poly filters and trending good again.

 

[Paul B]

I like to slowly dose iron. I think it's one hammer and one pliers for 50 gallons of water.

 

[chrisdhewitt]

I had similar issues a year ago. Found rusted magnet from an eshopps frag rack but wasn’t positive that was the culprit. I put a bag of cuprisorb in the sump and removed the rack and it turned around. Over time the cuprisorb did change color so I think that was the problem even if not from that rack. Have done Icp tests since and all is where it should be. Try the cuprisorb- it doesn’t just do copper

 

[DraggingTail]

Definitely looking into replacing the impellers.

My last test a couple days ago showed:

Salinity 35ppm
pH 8.4
Alk 8.5
Ca 430
Mg 1360
Nitrate 4-8
Phosphate 0.006

and have been fairly stable for the last couple of monthes. I know the P is low but I'm scared of dosing phosphates directly so I'm just trying to feed Reefroids more often. So far dinos haven't come back "knock wood", just a bit of cyano.

P is your issue. Not rust